Airbag-related recalls in Malaysia: is your car affected?

By now, you would be familiar with the Takata airbag recall issue – the Japanese parts maker’s airbags have been the focus of a series of massive recalls since 2008, involving over 17 million vehicles worldwide, according to Reuters.

The recalls involve improperly-manufactured airbag inflators – in a crash, the inflator could rupture and cause, in extreme cases, metal shards from the airbag casing to be sprayed at the occupants, potentially maiming or killing them.

The flawed part has been linked to at least four deaths in the US and a considerable number of injuries. Initially, the component in question was the front passenger airbag inflator, but lately it has emerged that a Malaysian, travelling in a 2003 Honda City that contained a defective airbag, was killed in a collision in July, and it was the driver’s airbag inflator that ruptured, sending shrapnel flying inside the car.

The Malaysian incident is not only the first related death outside the US, but also the first to involve the driver’s airbag.

Reports suggest that the root cause of the problem is the airbag propellant, the substance that is ignited and burns extremely quickly to create a huge volume of gas to inflate the bag. Exposure to moisture – prevalent in humid climates like ours – can cause the propellants to become unstable, detonating with excessive force during a collision.

Reuters reports that Takata has changed the chemical composition of its airbag propellant, although ammonium nitrate – considered volatile – is still in the mix. Competitors Autoliv and TRW Automotive are reported to use less-volatile guanidine nitrate as the main ingredient.

While Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, BMW, Chrysler and General Motors have all issued worldwide recalls relating to this, only Toyota, Honda and Nissan have so far officially called back vehicles for airbag issues in Malaysia.

If you own any of the cars in the list below, it is absolutely vital that you send them in to be checked as soon as possible.

While most dream of the future, Jonathan Tan dreams of the past, although he's never been there. Fantasises much too often about cruising down Treacher Road (Jalan Sultan Ismail) in a Triumph Stag that actually works, and hopes this stint here will snap him back to present reality.

As far as I know, the affected airbags are produced by TAKATA Japan in their US factory, around year 2003.

I don’t think Korea is using TAKATA airbags. Plus they would have issued recalls by now if they did. Because this is serious stuff; one lady in Malaysia already got killed, and some others around the world.

At this point in time, only the following Honda, Toyota and Nissan vehicles are affected in the Malaysian market.

Chrysler, Ford, Mitsubishi and Mazda too are affected, but Chrysler was not sold in Malaysia, the only the Ford Mustang, Ford GT and Ford Ranger was recalled (only the Ford Ranger was sold in Malaysia, but at the time, the Ranger we got did not have airbags). The only Mitsubishi Lancer which was affected was the 2004-2005 Lancer, which again, not sold in Malaysia (if I am not mistaken).

As for the Mazdas, the 2004-06 Mazda6 and MazdaSpeed6 was recalled but those are the ones made in the US, our Mazda6 was Japanese built, and the MazdaSpeed6 was not sold here. The RX8 2004-2007 is interesting because it was the same Japanese built ones that were affected. The Mazda MPV 2004 also is recalled in the US, we got it as the Premacy, again like the RX8, we too got it from Japan.

The E46 3 series was also recalled, but I think ours are not affected, potentially because ours were built locally, however again, there would have been some of the CBU units that came from the same German factory.

Again, there is a can of worms here. This is from the US list, so far. I’ve not seen a list of the euro market cars that have been affected, and actually, many of our cars are euro market or Australian/Asian market cars, also, local production would mean that some of the models may not use the same airbags made in the US plant.

Unfortunately there is no list of car models that use Takata bags at this point in time, so we won’t be able to easily check if our cars are affected.

Don’t worry. Nothing will be done eventually. In other countries, Government will intervene and make the car companies replace the ABS but in Malaysia, Government literally own every car company in Malaysia.

Usually recalls is related to major safety items, such as brake system, air bags, short circuits, steering system, and such.
Other issues not related to safety are repaired or replaced during scheduled servicing.

They didn’t see this coming. I bet Autoliv, Toyoda Gosei, GSK and the rest of airbag supplier didn’t see this coming as well.

If you read carefully in the article did mention that
“Exposure to moisture – prevalent in humid climates like ours – can cause the propellants to become unstable, detonating with excessive force during a collision.”
Exposure to moisture in this context means that the airbag is exposed to moisture for very long time i.e 10 years before the pellets inside inflator become unstable.

What I know is airbag supplier did aging test by salt spray test only (they made the airbag module corroded faster by applying salt and heat and do deployment test
to simulate deployment after the car is on road 10 years, to verify that the airbag still can function even after heavily corroded) and did not include moisture as an
element to evaluate aging test.

If only Takata airbag is having this problem then maybe because the recipe they used for the inflator as part of kaizen is different from others.
Maybe not only 2002-2003 batch, after this all Takata airbags will need to change after 10 years if they keep continue using ammonium nitrate in their inflator until now (provided
the theory of using ammonium nitrate contribute to this malfunction is proven).

Oh Gosh! Luckily My Honda City isn’t in the list, my honda is the 2006 model. But i thought Japanese car is safe or we say can put trust onto the Honda company. No wonder my friend’s 03′ Honda City had end up with an accident. But his head was injured badly, had recovered. It’s really shock when i heard these Japan cars had air bag problem. What do you think guys?

Hi all sifus. Recently I am planning to get a used 3rd gen City type E with peddle shift, year made 2011. Please confirm if VSA is not available for this version? Also the airbag accident involved 2nd gen City last year really freak us out and shaken my confident towards Honda City now. Should I go ahead with the purchase?

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